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cloudbattrolls · 1 year

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Left Hand Free

Jikiro Takami | Gliese Benral’s Territory | Present Night

Notes: The prior drabble to this is You & Me: Part Two. Yarrex and Reality’s Song belong to @trolloled!

He had to admit, this wasn’t quite how he’d imagined returning to fight Gliese, with a nervous-looking olive and smiling brownblood in tow. Gerrel had been a big help in recommending the cheerful sniper.

Maidel hadn’t said much as they’d met up at Viltau’s, her eyes flicking around nervously, but Yarrex seemed like a fun guy. A little weird, but hey, who was Jikiro to judge? He was strange company’s CEO by this point.

The three of them had just teleported to the edge of the hedge maze, the blueblood’s mansion dimly visible beyond the foliage. The weather wasn’t too bad, thankfully - some clouds, but there was enough moonlight to see by, and the wind was mild. It was a bit chilly, though the tealblood barely felt it; a benefit of being undead, he supposed.

Maidel wore a jacket and a scarf, but he felt comfortable in some simple pants and a shirt; he couldn’t wear anything too restrictive anyway for his part of the plan.

Gerrel and Maidel hadn’t reported any security drones or guards or anything; while Gliese was high on traps she was low on troll power, so they should be safe here for the moment.

Then again, with powers like she and her signmate - good god she had a signmate - had, the pair didn’t exactly need a ton of backup.

“I don’t sense her.” Maidel confirmed in a soft voice. “She can’t be close. That’s good, but we’ll have to draw her out.”

Jikiro grinned.

“Oh, I’ll draw her out. Let’s get Yarrex in position first.”

Following a short exchange, the brownblood was given a psiionic shield made from Maidel’s powers and teleported off to the hive - but there was no telling how well said shield would hold up against a psychic as powerful as Kit.

Ullane had provided them each with a backup nullifier, but it only had so much range, and the machines couldn’t be on when Maidel had to use her own psi again.

Especially since the pangolin-sheep troll had to conserve her energy for nullifying and restraining Gliese once Jikiro triggered a seizure, then taking them all back.

They’d have to work quickly.

She returned, put the last part of their plan in place with his help - within minutes, they’d ensured all the devices were pointed in the right direction and the sound barrier (though it wasn’t perfect) was in place. Maidel moved away, ready to activate it remotely when Gliese was in range.

The tealblood cracked his knuckles. Time to do what he could do very well when occasion called for it, having learned from the master since wrigglerhood.

Be annoying.

He pulled out some sheets of paper - kozo, the good old-fashioned kind, with spells already drawn on them, ready to be activated with a touch.

He downed some ink with a quick gulp from a bottle, then brushed his hand across each page and watched as the symbols wriggled, lifted off the paper, and knit together into small, simple creatures. They weren’t direct analogues of animals, but most resembled bugs in some way - dark, quick and skittering.

At a gesture from him, they went to locate the cerulean, zipping away through the air.

The little constructs would find the hare troll, bother her, and corral her to where he needed her. They’d dissolve once they achieved that, but they had the important utility of being impervious to anything she could throw at them.

She’d be forced to pursue the things if she wanted them gone, with a few instructed to “die” to egg her on, make her think she had a chance of getting rid of them if she followed and kept trying.

He took out a cigarette to smoke while he waited. He hadn’t had the chance in a little while.

It wasn’t long before he heard the telltale sounds of cursing, the thudding of her lusus’s feet, and took a final drag before lowering it and putting it in his sylladex. His lusus hadn’t gotten him to quit, but he could never litter without knowing she’d kill him for it.

Gliese Benral came within range, looking at him with utmost hatred in her glowing orange eyes. Again she sat atop her lusus, the giant hare matching his charge’s glare as he strode closer, fangs bared. The last of the constructs fizzled away into ink, which returned to the teal, symbols swirling on his skin.

Maidel flipped the switch on the reality’s song setup loaned to them by Ullane, rigged into a network of speakers surrounding the tealblood and the blueblood.

The sound hurt his ears, even muffled and at a distance as it was. It was carefully sealed to only be focused outwards, so he could still use magic, as long as he was careful to not get too close to the edge of the barrier.

Gliese too still had her powers, with one very important limitation: there were only so many ghosts she could draw on now, and the noise itself would make it hard for her to retreat.

Sure enough, she gritted her teeth as it was activated but sat up straight and haughty on her lusus anyway, large ears flicking. The animal stared at him with narrowed eyes, baring its fangs and pawing the ground as if it wanted to charge at him.

“Should I even bother asking why you’re back?” She spat. “Or should I just kill you again?”

“You could make this easy and just come with me.” He said, shrugging. “But let’s be real; neither of us really wants that.”

“Goddamn right.” Snarled the blueblood, whipping out a flamethrower.

Huh. He hadn’t expected that, drawing a quick symbol on his shirt.

As she activated it the flames only got so far before it sputtered and died, gushing ink. Jikiro relished the look on her face for all of five seconds as her lusus ran forward and she leapt off, putting that weapon away and whipping out her scythe.

He dodged as best he could, jumping away, but she sliced open his side, raising her blade to try again. He winced, gritting his teeth.

Stopped a hair’s breadth from his skin, he held the weapon in place with sticky restraints of his own ink-blood, trailing from the slowly bleeding gash.

Gliese’s face twisted in disgust and frustration, and she yanked on the scythe, pulling it free with a few good tugs - only to have it snatched by the teal and thrown over her head.

She snarled, orange sparks crackling around her, and despite his wound Jikiro smiled.

A zombie rose and tossed her scythe back to her, but he wasn’t there. He sealed his wound and drank more ink, pooling it below him and using the liquid to slide at speed, making a trail where he went and sealing it dry in his wake, making sure it adhered to the grass.

Air swirled around his skin where her scythe nearly got him again, and he spun around another zombie that popped out of the ground to grab at him. Giddy from the thrill as the wind tossed his ponytail around, Jikiro dodged more undead bursting around, trailing more ink behind him as he looped and zigzagged.

The pain of his wounds lessened as he focused on his footwork, as he taunted the growing ranks undead and their controller as she pursued him, and the tealblood grinned.

Until the giant hare’s powerful back legs sent him flying, skidding across the ground, wheezing as the air left his lungs in a sharp, painful blow. He felt the painful increase of the grinding notes, close to the barrier, and gritted his teeth. He felt the world trying to purge him as he struggled to rise.

No, not yet. He wasn’t quite done.

He looked up as he heard a horrible cracking, squelching noise and a terrible stench filled the air.

Ah, shit.

Gliese stood atop a structure of warped undead corpses over a dozen feet tall, supporting her as she glared daggers down at him. It grew further as he watched, just far enough from the barrier to work, and he felt the presence of ghosts again.

The lusus kept its distance from its charge’s creation, ears flattened, and Jikiro gritted his teeth. He didn’t like doing this.

Unfortunately for the giant hare, it stood directly on some of his dried ink.

He liquefied the material again, and bound the beast as it kicked and struggled.

Gliese’s head whipped around to watch her custodian writhe, and Jikiro forced himself up, panting from his bad lungs - maybe he really should quit smoking - and summoned his ink again, forcing himself onward across the grass, breath misting the air from the chill.

He managed a final few swirls and lines until Gliese forced him to the ground with both phantoms and the clawing fingers of a pair of zombies

The corpses pinned his limbs and forced him to look up at the psychic, her lean arms crossed as the wind tossed her hair around.

He would have done so willingly.

Blood and ink running down his face, missing a few fangs, covered in dirt and leaves - Jikiro grinned the vicious smile of a hunter whose prey just tripped the snare.

The teal snapped his fingers as the blueblood jumped from her morbid tower, blade raised to chop the tealblood’s head off.

The extensive symbol array he’d been drawing with his ink the whole time activated.

A series of flashing lights, a far larger-scale version of the symbol he’d drawn when they’d first met, with other colors, shone brilliantly through the cloudy night.

The exact sort of sequence that, as Ullane had informed him, would trigger a seizure in any sensitive psiionic.

Jikiro’s eyes were shut, prepared, and he opened them the moment the sequence was over.

Gliese lay prone on her macabre structure, which crumbled to loose flesh and bones and as he watched. With a weary, satisfied smile he slid over on a small wave of black to catch her.

As her lean body fell into his arms he realized she really was quite small, especially for a highblood - she barely weighed a thing. How old was she?

He took out another drawn symbol from his modus to tap and activate, and Maidel appeared moments later.

Eyes alight with lime energy, he bound the cerulean with his psi, shutting off the terrible sound barrier right after with a sigh.

The tanuki troll stood there for a moment in the quiet, catching his breath as adrenaline coursed through him still.

Despite his pain and fatigue, he couldn’t stop grinning.

“Get Yarrex, and let’s go back.” He said.

The olive returned with the sniper in short order, the lowblood unruffled as ever.

In a burst of lime sparks, all of them vanished once more.

–

Jikiro couldn’t have been happier to see the main hall of Viltau’s hive. He set down Gliese in a chair as the indigo had instructed, and then collapsed into one himself.

God, he should get out of sight before someone tried to force him to change into clothes of his choice again - but he was tired, aching, and didn’t want to move. Not for a little while, anyway.

He’d clean up the chair later as an apology, but right now, the tealblood could only doze.

Yet a smile remained on his sleeping face, the hard-earned satisfaction of a job finally well done.

THE END OF

THE DEADCRUSH ARC

PART OF THE RIPPLE EFFECT PLOT

#cloud writes #Jikiro Takami #Gliese Benral #Maidel Juzuxt #Yarrex Fissaa #but it ain't over til Gliese talks to Eichio :]

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